Adaptiveness of aggressive, assertive, and submissive behavior for children

Cognitive Mediation of Aggressive, Assertive, and Submissive Behavior in Children

The present study explored the relationships among levels of aggressiveness, assertiveness, and submissiveness and (1) alternative-thinking ability, (2) judgments of response alternatives on a variety of indices including 'evaluative' and 'potency' dimensions, and (3) consequential thinking, for 188 fourth-sixth grade children. The five best predictors of aggressiveness, of assertiveness, and of submissiveness for both boys and girls represented combinations of alternative-thinking, consequential-thinking, and evaluative-judgment dimensions. The clinical implications of these findings for treating aggressive and submissive children are discussed.

[Causal relationship between assertiveness and adjustment in children: A short-term longitudinal study]

This study examined the causal relationships between assertiveness and both internal and external adjustment in children. Elementary school children in grades four through six (N = 284) participated in the study, which used a short-term longitudinal design. The children completed questionnaires twice during a 6-months period. They responded to assertiveness questionnaires that included two components: "self-expression" and "consideration of others". They also completed a self-esteem scale as an index of internal adjustment, and the Class Life Satisfaction scale as an index of external adjustment. There was a positive causative relationship between "self-expression" and internal adjustment and between "consideration for others" and external adjustment. In addition, the effects on adjustment varied according to the type of assertiveness. Cluster analysis and MANOVA indicated that the group with high "self-expression" and "consideration for others" had high internal and external adjustment, while the children with poor assertiveness showed the lowest degree of adaptivity.

The relationship of anger and child psychopathology

This study examines the relationship of anger to child psychopathology in an inpatient psychiatric sample. Results suggest that anger as assessed by the Children's Inventory of Anger is not highly correlated with other affective experiences or behavioral dispositions, yet may provide incremental data pertinent to distinguishing children with concurrent disturbances of emotion and conduct from children with disturbances in either emotion or conduct.

Situational social problem-solving skills and self-esteem of aggressive and nonaggressive boys

This study was designed to assess specific social problem-solving, perceived competence, and self-esteem characteristics of 20 aggressive and 18 nonaggressive boys. Significant behavioral differences existed between the groups. The problem-solving measure provided for qualitative assessment of specific problem solutions that children consider, varying according to the interpersonal context of conflicts with peers, teachers, and parents and to the level of others' intent in conflicts (ambiguous frustration and hostile provocation). In univariate analyses, aggressive children had poorer self-esteem, generated fewer verbal assertion solutions in peer conflicts and during hostile frustration, and employed more direct action solutions with teachers and during hostile frustration. Discriminant analyses significantly differentiated the two groups. Findings indicated that future research should consider the relative distribution of specific kinds of problem situations that children produce, and that situational factors in social problem-solving skills should be addressed.

Clinical application of the Children's Action Tendency Scale

The clinical usefulness of a previously validated self-report measure of children's assertiveness was examined for two white school-age samples ( ns = 18 and 17; 6 to 14 yr. old) referred for training in group social skills. Subscale scores of a clinical sample supported the norms of the validation samples but the relationship of these scores to parental and self-report measures of self-esteem appeared equivocal. Use with a hyperkinetic sample showed the scale's sensitivity to treatment, but faking good during individual testing may be a problem with such children.

The social impact of assertiveness. Research findings and clinical implications

Recent studies on the social impact of assertiveness have revealed that although assertiveness is perceived as a dimension that is regarded as highly competent and skillful, it also is viewed as unfavorable interpersonal behavior. Such factors as sex, empathy, assertiveness level, and race appear to moderate the perceptions of assertiveness, attesting to the highly complex, situationally specific nature of assertiveness and its social impact. Various findings about these moderators have been reported, but conclusive generalizations regarding this new area must await the results of future studies. Finally, several clinical implications for assertiveness training are explored.

Client characteristics associated with behavior change for treated and untreated aggressive boys

This study examined the relationship between subject characteristics of aggressive boys and their behavioral changes during a school year. Seventy-six boys in the fourth, fifth, and sixth grades were identified by their teachers as the most disruptive and aggressive in their classes. These boys were assigned to untreated control, anger-coping, anger-coping plus goal-setting treatment, and minimal treatment goal-setting cells. The anger-coping treatment was based on cognitive behavioral procedures. In both anger-coping cells, greater reductions in rates of disruptive/aggressive off-task classroom behavior was predicted by having higher rates of these behaviors initially, and greater reductions in parents' ratings of aggression was predicted by having poor social problem-solving skills initially. Additional predictors of reductions in parents' ratings of aggression in one, but not both, anger-coping cells included having higher rates of somatic symptoms and poorer social acceptance by peers. In contrast to the other cells, those boys in the no-treatment group who demonstrated the greatest spontaneous improvement on these change measures were the ones who initially were the best problem-solvers and who had higher levels of self-esteem. This cognitive-behavioral treatment appeared to have most impact with those boys who were the most in need of intervention.